A Gunzerker’s motto is ‘Just keep firing’. As long as bullets are flying, the Gunzerker is happy. Living their whole lives around guns has made them experts of firearms and ammunition. This usually means they can give as good as they get, and are tougher than most.

Most Gunzerkers are dressed casually — jeans and t-shirts aren’t out of the question — but with more ammo belts, holsters, and other accoutrements that say, “I like guns and do not typically use words like accoutrements.“

They also tend to have beards. Your Gunzerker doesn’t need a beard, but if they don’t have one, maybe consider giving them a -1 to all intimidation-related Talk Checks. Maybe.

Bunkers & Badasses PHB, Gunzerker Class, by Nerdvana

This class has a bit of a crazy, and humourous, background. The big deal with this class is that you get to wield two firearms! Most characters are limited in this way, and being able to have two different types of weapons is a really good advantage and you can get a lot of damage done.

With favoured guns as Rocket Launcher or Shotgun, you are looking at starting with pretty high damage as a base.

Action Skill: Gunzerking

This is where you want to optimize this class. You want to be Gunzerking as much as possible! On top of wielding both your guns at once for 2 turns, you also gain health regen. The number of times you can do this skill is 1/Encounter + whatever your Mastery mod is per day, so optimizing Mastery is really going to help you here.

Backgrounds

Like all classes, there are some backgrounds to pick from. There are some funny descriptions on the backgrounds here, but you can essentially choose to add +1 to any of your main stats with these.

• Roids: You get a small health bonus (+5 Starting Health) and lose -2 on Traverse Checks. Don’t pick this one, long run you need Traverse more, and you have health regen with your action skill.
• Curiosity Kills: This one would be my choice, with the +1 Mastery, though you do lose -2 on Insight Checks.
• Savior: Not a bad choice either, with +1 Damage and taking -2 on Talk Checks. Just make sure somebody else is the charismatic one in the party!
• Gotta go fast: The +1 Speed could be helpful moving around the map, but the -2 Sneak Checks might not be worth it.
• Cowboy: Better accuracy (+1 Accuracy), but combines with a 40% chance you wind up in a bar fight in every bar. Oh, and a -1 on Interact Checks. Could be chaotic, but not sure the bonus is worth it here.

Skill Tree

The Gunrzerker’s Gun List skill tree is, unsurprisingly, focused a lot around movement and Gunzerking. If you focus in on Mastery and Speed, you can optimize in this skill tree fairly well.

Archetypes

I think the Elementalist is maybe the best fit, though pretty much any of them have some benefit that would help the Gunzerker. However, with Gunzerking bringing in a second weapon it can trigger off some of the benefits of the Elementalist archetype at the same time.

Image credits:

• Cover image artwork copyright Gearbox, sourced from https://danfasulo.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/borderlands-salvador.png